MayFlower Software

Tags: Spam

Spammers like any current event to try to improve the "open rate" of their mail. The Royal Wedding is one of those opportunities, and I dug this out of my spam folder. This spam is selling Royal wedding memorabilia. The site did not accept my "fake" credit card number, even though it was the correct 16 digits and started with "43", making me think it was a phishing site, not a promotional site. But for $19.90, this "Royal Heirloom Ring" is about $11,000,000 cheaper than the original!

Share in the Wedding of the Century & Own a piece of British Royal History! In celebration of the most anticipated wedding of the century between his Royal Highness Prince William and Miss Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, you can now own the Royal Heirloom Ring, a limited edition replica of the timeless heirloom engagement ring that Princess Diana received from Prince Charles nearly 30 years ago! See this Timeless Collector's Masterpiece of the Royal Engagement Ring! Click here (Link disabled)

Posted by Frank Paolino At 8:50 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Tags: Biking

This "Kate Middleton" takes care of my biking supplies as manager of ATA Cycles in Concord, Massachusetts. She is not related to "THE" Kate Middleton, but Facebook thought she was an imposter and took her account down.

She is now using the "publicity" to help promote a charity bike ride for the  in the New England Multiple Sclerosis Society's Cape Cod Challenge. "If I am successful, I will complete the entire two day 175 mile bike ride in a wedding dress on a tandem bicycle with a Prince William look a like"  (CLICK HERE for fundraising link.)   For the record, I plan to donate $50 for her cause.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 1:49 PM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: MyFirstApp

Shotokan Kata Apps for the iPhone and iPad

I wanted to build a training app for the iphone/ipad to help learn kata. Most of the apps are embedded YouTube videos, which are good but very difficult to rewind one more or replay a single move.  They also only show one direction, so when the karateka is facing away from the camera, the student has no idea what technique is being performed.

So, after a lot of thought, I worked out a method to show a kata in four directions, step-by-step.  Luckily, one of the students in the dojo, Poul Williams, is an Apple programmer, and he was able to take my ideas and video and create the app.

Shotokan kata "Heian Shodan" performed by Frank Paolino. Heian Shodan Shotokan karate kata shows the kata move by move by swiping a finger. It also lets you look at the kata from all four sides to see the moves from different directions. With your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad in your hand, you can review the moves of the kata in slow motion, then practice at full speed. There are buttons to repeat a move, go backwards and start over. The benefit over a YouTube video (and we have these, too, posted at doshikai.net) is the ability to easily stop and go back just one move, or work on 2-3 moves over and over again. This approach offers students a way to learn the movements of a kata at their own pace, or the ability to review a kata outside the dojo, then be able to practice it in class without worrying about the moves or the sequence, thus allowing more attention in the class to correct performance of the techniques.

Heian Shodan Shotokan karate kata performed by Frank Paolino from Master Matsuyama's DoShiKai karate school.



Frank Paolino had the original idea for this app. It was designed jointly by Frank Paolino and Poul Williams

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:46 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (6) |      

Tags: Viruses

The FBI issued a press release (I didn't know that the FBI wrote "press releases").  Here are some excerpts from that press release:

"Coreflood allows infected computers to be controlled remotely for the purpose of stealing private personal and financial information from unsuspecting computer users, including users on corporate computer networks, and using that information to steal funds."

"The seizure of the Coreflood servers and Internet domain names is expected to prevent criminals from using Coreflood or computers infected by Coreflood for their nefarious purposes,"

"Coreflood is a particularly harmful type of malicious software that records keystrokes and private communications on a computer. Once a computer is infected with Coreflood, it can be controlled remotely from another computer, known as a command and control (C & C) server. A computer infected by Coreflood and subject to remote control is referred to as a "bot," short for "robot." According to information contained in court filings, the group of all computers infected with Coreflood is known as the Coreflood botnet, which is believed to have been operating for nearly a decade and to have infected more than two million computers worldwide. "


Read the full press release, here:
http://newhaven.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/nh041311.htm

Posted by Frank Paolino At 11:12 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: Viruses

This was recently posted from Commtouch, who have noticed a 30% increase in mail-borne malware in the last few weeks. The sheer quantity of emails in this outbreak -- at its peak one third of all email traffic -- together with the fact that in recent years malware writers have moved away from using email to spread viruses, is raising a lot questions about what is behind these attacks. One theory is that is that someone is trying to rebuild their botnet, or build up a new one, after the takedown of the Rustock botnet several weeks ago. The Rustock takedown resulted in a 30% reduction of global spam levels.



Read more of the posting on Ari Turiel's blog

Posted by Frank Paolino At 5:25 PM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (0) |